deskthority

Maybe I am being a bit harsh. To be fair, I never got into modern keyboards. I've tried them, but never got interested in them because my first mechanical keyboard was a full size M. You are right, there are different focuses in this hobby and I, along with most of the people on here, much prefer ...

I would complain about how the videos drove the prices, but I would never have gotten into the scene were it not for those videos. Always fantastic and well-made, and persuasive to boot.

Absolutely, I mean no disrespect of chyros. Without his videos randomly popping up in my feed back in early ...

Same. I wasn't really part of the community until early 2015-ish, which was right around the time that chyros was publishing his first videos. Of those, the one which had *by far* the most views was his review of his ridiculously pristine mint KB-101A. :P

After that, I and everyone else on the ...

I have offered 110 he replied 250. I offered 150 he has not replied yet. Let's see. 150 is too much I reckon. People shouldn't really be buying blue Alps boards in conditions like this IMO.

Agreed, it just feeds into the hype and grossly over-inflated prices that have been a constant for the ...

Considering the state of that keyboard, $300 is a tad much, IMO. Alps switches don't weather dust all that well.

+1 to everything that Harshmallow said. I actually had the same experience with an FK-5001 last month myself; I got it for a good price on eBay and though the board itself is in materially good shape (minus yellowing on the keys themselves) the typing experience is pretty awful. Lots of binding, and ...

I'd beware of all that dust. If there's that much dust around the switch, there's probably an equal amount of dust *inside* of it.

And Alps switches do not respond well to dust, at all.

No sure if this has been discussed here or not. I had a pretty bad experience buying keyboards from him.

I purchased a keyboard advertised as having APL keycaps. He sent a regular Model F, and did not reply emails for more than two weeks that I had to open a case on ebay against him. He then said ...

I think he'd have more luck just running a bidding war; that's where all of the major Blue Alps sells of the last few months went. Wouldn't be surprised if he got up to at least half of his asking price.

(Make no mistake, I'd love to own it, but I couldn't really afford that either.)

NIB DC-3014 for a cool $700:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-3014-LEADING ... 2170527500?

I feel like this one was posted before, and it turned out the board actually came with White Alps switches.

Don't know if anyone else has noticed, but elecplus' (former?) Model F supplier has been repeatedly relisting his "APL" Model F, using apparently the same sets of pictures, every time one of them gets bought:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-IBM-1435036-Clicky-Keyboard-APL-Model-F-1985-EXTREMELY ...

here's some cheap, normal ones (not 83 key, not sure where the seller got that from): http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-IBM-Model-F-83-Key-Mechanical-Clicky-Spring-PC-Keyboard-6110347-/112107795001

As was pointed out, the seller "clarified" the sale and also added an exorbitant $40-50 for CONUS ...

Yep, this is going to go up to $400 at the current rate. I wish eBayers would realize that early bidding like this does nothing more than drive the price up to levels only crazy Korean collectors can afford.

I was so pissed off when a certain member of a certain forum won my Monterey K101 for $220 and said "I didn't expect to win" and told me he planned on buying another board instead.

Get the hell out of here, that's not how you bid on items, dude. You do not bid unless you can (or intend to) pay for ...

I've really got to thank Chyros for mentioning that mint Omnikey this week. It arrived in absolutely beautiful condition, and it's the first time I've gotten to experience old SKCMs on a genuine bigass metal backplate. It's basically in as good a condition as my Ultra TP at literally less than 1/3 ...

I'm with Chyros... I love the Omnikey/Focus layout myself. The bigass enter is awesome and I like that it still has a full-sized backspace key (my #1 complaint with layouts like Chicony's). As I generally don't use the forward facing slash, having it shoved off to the bottom row doesn't bother me ...

The Chicony looks really clean. If someone wants to give white Alps a go, that's one you could get :) .

P.S. It's said those Ortek boards have doubleshot PBT, but no-one's been able to confirm or disprove it xD .

I saw that Chicony as well. It's a very clean board--very nearly NIB condition in ...

Yeah, that's E3E's board.

And i just got a non-working FK9000 for 20 bucks on a whim. What are these restoration methods you speak of? :D

Edit: read in a thread where you mentioned it basically just needs a fresh battery. Duly noted, i'll make sure to try that before pestering you.

Yeah, I was just going to say this as ...

Those late-generation FK-2001s are most likely clone switches, if I had to guess.

Scarpia wrote: Actually he's probably not. But the buyer sure is.

Right. Someone should update the K104 entry on the wiki to warn people of the danger of Mitsumi switches.

A NIB Monterey K104:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Find-VTG-New-Old-Stock-In-Box-MTEK-Monterey-Clicky-Keyboard-Model-K104-NOS-/222080751016

Before anyone celebrates, I asked the seller to pull a keycap. While he wouldn't do it for this one (he claimed he wanted to 'preserve' its NIB status) he also ...

That KB-5161 is nice, but it's not $100 + $30 shipping nice.

From the same seller, another FK-9000, albeit at twice what I paid for mine:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Key-Pro-FK-9000-Vintage-Mechanical-Keyboard-Clicky-White-ALPS-/201561077438?

The seller claims it "works perfectly" and then says "I ...

I was wondering if anyone else saw that. THE Blue Alps. :lol:

I feel like the sellers are getting just a bit greedy, no? After finding out those troll bidders weren't going to pay $500 for their keyboards, they relist them at well over 3x what the actual market value is.

I implore everyone (users ...

Looks like the Acer auction fell through? The seller seems to have relisted it with a BIN price of $315.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-6011-Blue-Alps-Vintage-Keyboard-/111960419627

Still a bit too rich for my tastes.

Edit: Panbabis' Datatech from a few weeks ago is also relisted now, with a BIN ...

Ah man, it figures that Chyros would have seen or owned the rare MCK-142 that came with actual Alps switches. :P

All the ones I've seen--which granted is not a huge sample size--have been simplified Alps. I bow before your superior Alps knowledge, however, Chyros.

... On topic: http://www.ebay.com ...

That is a lot to be asking for just for the keycaps, although they are quite cool.

Ah, the Ortek battlecruiser! Not cheap for the condition it's in, but genuine Alps and it's a cool board, and almost as big as a battleship :D .

Not sure about "genuine" Alps, Chyros. I have a working theory all Ortek 142s shipped with SKBM Simplified switches, and I think this one's no exception ...

Somehow, that figures. Oh, Focus.

I have an FK-9000, but I actually haven't tested it thoroughly beyond the basics once I finally got it working (the switches need cleaning/replacing). It has the star nav cluster with the diagonal arrows... but IIRC the keyboard tester that everyone uses online actually picks them up as two ...